CHAP. XVIII THE LABOUR MARKET 377 



half the journey to the coast. On passing the Taita hills on 

 my way inland, I found that Mr. George Wilson had just 

 settled there, and was determined to persuade the natives to 

 help him to make his road through their country. The mission 

 station there had just been withdrawn on the ground that the 

 Wa-taita are " an awful lot of sweeps," and the commander of 

 a caravan had recently hung a {t.v4 of the people as a warning 

 to the rest. I therefore went up country pitying Mr. Wilson 

 in his hopeless task. When I met him again on my return, 

 I found, to my amazement, that his tact and patience had been 

 successful ; a couple of hundred Wa-taita were merrily working 

 on the road, and as many more as were wanted could be had 

 for the asking. 



Patience, however, is indispensable. It required years of 

 persistent labour by a band of self-sacrificing enthusiasts on 

 the Congo to enlist the natives of that district, and in British 

 East Africa the population is now extremely sparse. The 

 sketch-map on p. 2)^Q shows how large a proportion of the 

 country is uninhabited, or occupied only by a few nomads. 

 Yet granted security and peace, the suppression of war raids, 

 and a guarantee that the crops will be reaped by the sower, then 

 the Bantu will multiply like the rabbit, and spread throughout 

 the land. I believe the problem of converting the next 

 generation into steady, capable workmen is only a question of 

 patient administration by men whose hearts are in their 

 work, and who know how to treat the natives with tact and 

 sympathy. 



The present condition of the West Indian islands shows 

 that the negro can be made to work as a freeman, and that 

 the permanent retention of slavery is unnecessary. But the 

 history of these islands during the first half of the present 

 century also shows how much harm can be done by the reck- 

 less suppression of even so great an evil as that system. The 

 sudden emancipation of the West Indian slaves furnishes a 

 useful warning ; it resulted not only in the temporary ruin of 

 the colonies, but in the enormous increase of the slave-trade. 



T. Powell Buxton,^ one of the foremost advocates of the 

 Emancipation Act of 1833, confessed, six years after it had 

 passed, that " the number [of slaves] annually landed in Cuba 



1 T. F. Buxton, History of the Africafi Slave Trade (1839), p. 173. 



